Kayak, not all colleges put the loans in the package. They may leave it to your discretion. So, our bottom line family contribution was $XX. We had the girls take the DL, which reduced the parent portion. And we then paid our delta in part with a PP loan.
The problem is when they package the loans as if they’re free money. Example: they show some magic math and say your contribution as, eg, 35k. But on inspection, they got to that number by throwing in a 10k PP loan. That would make your real bottom line 45k.
In this case, it helps to read the package offer closely, see exactly what the free money is, redo the math to see what you/your kid would take on in loans.
Read up on Parent Plus, also. It has some advantages, but you really need to know how you’ll pay it back. If things are tenuous or unpredictable, not a great idea.
Sorry, I see now this was an x-post.